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Money Box: Energy prices, Car insurance, Interest-only mortgages, Peer-to-peer lending

Energy prices, Car insurance, Interest-only mortgages, Peer-to-peer lending

05/11/2016

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, Energy prices, Car insurance, Interest-only mortgages, Peer-to-peer lending

Energy prices, insurance on social media, interest-only mortgages and peer-to-peer lending

Which? relaunches campaign against energy industry. Social media shaking up insurance premiums. Interest-only mortgage problems. Should we be concerned about peer-to-peer lending?

The consumer organisation Which? says energy companies are still doing too little to ensure existing customers are on the best rates - costing them £100s a year. However, Energy UK, which speaks on behalf of the energy companies, says they are already working to implement remedies ordered by the Competition and Markets Authority. We hear from Which? and Energy UK.

In a flurry of publicity this week, Admiral announced, then postponed, then scaled back what would have been an innovative new way to calculate car insurance risk for young drivers based on their personalities. The original plan was to search the Facebook posts of first time car insurance customers to assess whether they were safe drivers, and then offer them discounted premiums. Facebook put the brake on that, but we look into the other new developments using social media in the insurance sector. Is it too Big Brother? Or is anything that helps personalise premiums a good thing? We hear from insurance tech expert Greg Brown of Oxbow Partners.

Money Box listeners have complained of problems with their interest only mortgages. We look at what the rules were, depending when you took out your mortgage, and what recourse you have now.

And the Financial Ombudsman has raised concerns about the peer to peer lending sector. Do investors fully understand what they're getting into? Should the sector be regulated like the banks? We hear from Rhydian Lewis of Ratesetter and Dr Roger Gewolb of the Campaign for Fair Finance.

Presenter: Adam Shaw
Producer: Paul Waters.

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